I was traveling by myself to the US for the first time, I was a little nervous but excited for the summer program that lay ahead. I knew that after 9/11 travel to the US was much more complicated than before, but I had been to the US many times and never faced any trouble. I didn’t have any problems until I reached JFK International Airport; I had a connecting flight to catch to Washington. When I arrived at security, they asked me where I was from and we went through the regular questions of asking me why I was in the US and how long I was going to stay. Then, I proceeded towards security checks, took my shoes off and put my bag into the screening machine. I handed the officer my boarding pass and he took it away for a second, but astonishingly he put a little star on my pass. Then, he told me to take my bags and go to a room a little further away. I was questioned again about who I was and where I was going. But I think I faced less trouble than some of the other people sitting there. They let me go after half an hour. When I asked the officer why he had put a little star on my pass, he said that, “It’s because you are coming from the Middle East.” And that just made the whole thing clear.
The Bush administration has come under fire in the past few years for reining in civil liberties; this includes incidents of extraordinary rendition, more surveillance cameras and other such measures. Racial profiling or the usage of a person’s race as the sole basis for extra checks or even harassment in some cases is wrong. The color of a person’s skin or what part of the world he travels from is not an effective basis. The assumption that a person of a certain race is more likely to commit a crime is erroneous (MacDonald).
According to Heather MacDonald, “President George W. Bush joined the rush (of people against racial profiling), declaring portentously: "Racial profiling is wrong, and we will end it in America.” Then the question remains, why are people (men...